Todd Akin’s looming campaign of isolation

Rep. Todd Akin showed he could win a 48-hour standoff with his party. But that feat pales compared with what’s next: Running for a critical Senate seat as a candidate in near total isolation — abandoned by Republicans across the spectrum after his “legitimate rape” remarks and hard-pressed to raise the millions of dollars he’ll need to compete with Sen. Claire McCaskill.

The defiant six-term congressman believes he’s up to the task, regardless of what the rest of the political universe thinks. And Akin has his reasons, implausible as they may seem in the moment.

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He won a hard-fought primary earlier this month that most predicted he’d lose. He believes the fickle media’s attention will shift quickly, especially with party conventions right around the corner, and the race will remain tight given McCaskill’s disapproval ratings in Missouri. He reasons that the conservative elite calling on him to quit is disconnected from the support he’s seeing on the ground.

Akin and his team reckon the party and outside groups may eventually come around to support him, realizing that Republicans can’t afford to lose in Missouri if they want to regain power in the Senate.

“I believe we can win this,” Akin said on Mike Huckabee’s radio program Tuesday.

Joel Sawyer, a GOP consultant and onetime aide to former scandal-tarred South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, believes Akin should drop out. But he said it’s not unthinkable that Akin can move past the issue, given the “short attention span and memory of an average voter.”

“If he is in within striking distance, you can bet your butt people will reconsider their support,” he said of the Republicans who are abandoning him now.

Still, Akin is facing far more resistance from party leaders and like-minded allies than many other candidates who have found themselves dogged by controversy. He’s up against an almost unthinkable set of obstacles after resisting a furious GOP campaign to get him to drop out by a Tuesday deadline.

His party’s presidential candidate wants him to quit. Well-financed Republican outside groups say they won’t spend a dime on him. And virtually every Republican in the Senate, from the powerful leader on down to lowly rank-and-file members, wants a new candidate to take on the vulnerable Democratic incumbent.

Is there any path to victory for the 65-year-old congressman, who before his weekend fiasco was the favorite in a Republican-leaning state? Not according to former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.).

“Nothing,” Danforth told POLITICO when asked what Akin can do to rebound. “He can’t do anything. It’s gone. He can’t recover. … He’ll have some people supporting him, it’s just not going to be half of the electorate.”

But Akin’s mindset is a continent away from that of Republican figures like Danforth.

In the candidate’s view, he owes GOP establishment bigwigs-turned-critics little. He has scant relationships with his colleagues in Washington and has run an insular campaign in Missouri, relying on a small group of advisers that includes his wife, Lulli; his son Perry, who serves as his campaign manager; and his Ohio-based media consultant, Rex Elsass.

So the conservative congressman representing the St. Louis suburbs was quick to dismiss the “big party people.” Instead, he insisted, there’s been an “outpouring” of grass-roots support that will be “engaged and committed” to seeing him win the race.

The next month will be critical for the Republican Party and Akin. After skipping the Tuesday deadline to quit so the party could easily name a replacement, Akin now faces a new deadline of Sept. 25, the latest he could obtain a court order to get off the November ballot.

Both parties will be watching the polls closely ahead of that date. Top Republicans will be eager to make the case to Akin that he can’t win and has no choice but to bow out for the good of the party.

C'mon, I bet most of the people who voted for Akin in the primaries already knew his views ... many of them probably share his views. He may well win the Senate seat. But he may help the Democrats win several other Senate seats, and the Presidency.

All politics is local. Missouri's jobless are well aware of Obama's failures. It is the economy that is the number one issue and Obama has failed America's economic recovery. Hot issues such as homosexual marriage and abortion without exception are also important issues for Missouri voters.

Akin can win in Missouri? Without the vote of every woman and every woman-loving man? Without the vote of those that believe a candidate must rise to a certain level of intelligence, education and compassion before they would vote for him or her? Akin is right to view Republican leaders and Rove as political whores that will cave on their so-called principles if Akin is within striking distance of Senator McCaskill in mid-October. But Akin is not really sorry, as his unapologetic "apology" showed. He said what he believed and said what he meant to say. His only error was not one word ("legitimate"), as he delusionally thinks, but in thinking no one would be upset by his words, ideas and implied misogyny. Paul Ryan thinks similarly. Akin knows he's not alone. There are a lot of misogynistic crazy men in the Republican Party. The Republican Party Platform stands with Akin on this issue (except for, maybe, his kooky biological notions). Republicans want to populate the world with offspring of rapists, pedophiles and incestuous molesters. Why not honor and reward these men, think Republican politicians, by putting women through the hell of having to carry those pregnancies to term? Because, really, if a woman doesn't want it, really, truly doesn't want it to happen, she won't get pregnant as a result of the sex.

Akin is that weird contradiction: a theocrat who rants and rails at Democrats for thinking government is God, yet believes he can speak for God (and medical doctors) and seeks a powerful government job from which to do it. I think we've only heard the first from Akin. I think he has a lot more crazy hatefulness to share with us before Election Day. I think Republican leaders, who know Akin better than us, believe so too, which is why their unusually swift and severe reaction to his remarks. His sin? He let one of the Republicans' dark cats out of the bag.

The economy is in recovery from the mess that was made by a Republican administration. Why should the American people vote to go back to those same policies?

Also, sorry if it's taking too long to clean up your mess.

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Ok, without any talking points from MSNBC, Media Matters and DailyKos, do tell us how we are better off today than we were 4 years ago.

NOW, YOU DO REALIZE THAT OBAMA WILL BE OUT OF OFFICE ONE DAY, RIGHT? WHAT MAKES YOU THINK WE WON'T BLAME HIM FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR COUNTRY, DIVISION IN AMERICA, AND THE INCREASE IN POVERTY, AMONGST OTHER THINGS?

Roameo, if it really worked like that, no woman anywhere would vote Republican, and nobody who makes less than a million a year would vote Republican either, because Republican policies are both anti-woman and anti- middle class.

Obviously, it doesn't work like that, because women do vote Republican (and thus, against their own interests), and many poor and middle-class also vote Republican (also against their own interests). I don't see why voters in Missouri will be any different.

I admire Akin for sticking to principle. So he said something stupid - big deal. Nobody got hurt. Nobody lost any tax money. No disastrous legislation like Obamacare was passed.

The hard core democrats and the news media are like a bunch of adults with ADD. The big issue is how our economy is being ruined by the socialist policies being espoused by the leadership of the Democratic party. But let some little issue like a stupid statement come up and they all forget about the economy and start chasing after the latest little shiny thing. The difference betweeen Democrats and the news media is that the news media is well aware of what they're doing - and they're doing it to retain power. The Democrats are just lemmings following the media over the cliff.

Let's face it. If the Democratic party were serious about women's righs, would they have a rapist giving the keynote speech at the Democratic convention? If they were serious about ethics, would they have a keynote speaker who had to surrender his law license because he committed perjury? If they were serious about anything would they have a keynote speaker whose name is synonomous with lying?

I want to see Akin hang in there and I want to see him win. And I want to see him shove this issue back in the faces of all those - Democratic and Republican alike - who are ready to throw a man under the bus for making a statement that would go totally unnoticed if some idiot like Biden made it.

Ok, without any talking points from MSNBC, Media Matters and DailyKos, do tell us how we are better off today than we were 4 years ago.

We're not. But we would've been worse off than we are today if McCain won. Most of the world is in economic crisis, there's no way any government could've taken us out of that in 1 or 2 years, but America's recovery is starting faster than most of the rest of the world's. If we remain on the current course, full recovery will come and we will lower our deficit.

Completely abolishing our deficit and paying off our debts is something that neither party has a serious plan for. Our two party system sucks.

Please keep talking. Please keep putting pressure on your party to run right wing freaks who scare the crap out of women, Latinos and medicare recipients. You know NOTHING about politics. NOTHING. Your little tea party party is doomed this year. You lost Nevada, you lost Delaware, you WILL lose Missouri and now have to spend money there to defend that state in the national / general (you don't get that, because you are a reactionary creep who knows how to do nothing but attack blacks, latinos, gays, women, liberals, teachers, unions, educators and on and on. Who do you have? White, older people lie you and me -- accept many of us don't support your knuckledragging jerks that you elect and who will get CREAMED in the election.

This attack on women is bizarre and if you don't think this is sticking with women, just look at what your party leaders are doing. Your tiny brain will get all up in arms about RINOS (yet another group of people you hate) but you DON'T GET IT.